


Taste of lost hearts on drowning ships

by proudandbroken



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Canon Disabled Character, Drowning, Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, I'm Sorry, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 12:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8162069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proudandbroken/pseuds/proudandbroken
Summary: This was their final farewell. The end of their shared path. How often had he dreamed about it, his mind trying to imagine how it would be? Yet nothing had managed it to prepare Silver for the hard reality.





	

He had always known he would be the end of Captain Flint. It was bound to happen. He would not fool himself with illusions of a peaceful future together. Some day in the future their paths would diverge from each other. It was bound to happen. They both knew it, in the back of their minds. It was inevitable. But what he did not expect was the way it ended.

 

There was no happy ending. Not for men like them. Never. It was a lesson he’d learned early in life. There was a price each man had to pay for choosing the descent into darkness. Flint knew it, tried to warn him in some way perhaps. But John gladly followed him down the rabbit hole like the fool he was until he was surrounded by darkness as well.

 

It was far too easy. The giving in. It felt too good, like nothing he had ever experienced before. The power was intoxicating. He once thought he lost everything with his leg. Oh, how wrong he was.

 

It should have been more difficult. It should not feel pleasant. He should not feel delight at killing people. Yet he did. Killing Dufresne had only been the beginning. It opened a door inside of him of which he never knew existed. Maybe he ought to be thankful for that.

 

People were terrified of Flint. People became terrified of him, of the idea that he was Long John Silver. Amusing how he was significantly scarier as a cripple than he’d ever been before he lost his leg. Who would have thought it?

 

The darkness was inviting. It offered comfort and warmth. Like a lover it seduced him and drowned him into the depths of pitch black destruction, giving him something as equally good as all the things he wanted in life.

 

Of all the things he wanted, perhaps the thing he wanted most, even more than gold, was to put an end to the never-ending loneliness of his life. The darkness could satisfy many needs, though that was one that could not be satisfied by power and death.

 

He had thought Flint was the one. That he could be his partner in darkness. That he would be by his side. Oh, how wrong he was. While he embraced it, Flint hated it. Yet when they joined in bed he felt less lonely and more like himself than he ever had before. It was rough, it was passionate and he had never felt so alive before, almost like a whole man again and not the cripple he was.

 

There was a third man sharing their bed. His name was Thomas Hamilton. John could feel his presence. And he feared that he would never be good enough. He was not Thomas. He could never be. Thomas was light, while he was darkness. He could never be what Flint wanted. No matter how hard he tried. 

 

It was easier to pretend. To ignore when Flint moaned the name of his past lover while he was lost in a haze of lust. He tried convincing himself that he did not care. The stabbing pain in his chest begged to differ.

 

He knew he was not meant to be loved. He knew this was just temporary. That he would never replace Thomas. Perhaps there had been hope in the beginning. Hope that Flint would see more in him than just a body to warm his bed. How foolish. There was no love. There would never be. Sometimes he wondered if he was even able to feel love. Or was it just the desire to feel something that was not pain. 

 

He had embraced the darkness but what he did not know was that once you let it in there was little room for anything more. It was hungry. It wanted to be fed. It craved death and destruction. And he was happy to deliver. Battle after battle. They killed, they ravaged. Until there was nothing left butemptiness while blood was staining the earth and fear shone in people’s eyes just at the whisper of his name.

 

 

 

There was a battle. Again. English. Spanish. He did not know. He did not care. It didn’t matter. In the end there would be red blood tainting the clear blue waters and dead bodies sinking to the bottom of the sea. There would be no one down there to care where they came from.

 

The fight was hard. Dead bodies littered the deck of the ship. The people still fighting were dripping with blood. Some their own, some of their opponents. It was impossible to distinguish. They had started the battle side by side. Now they were separated. He was still standing in the middle of the deck while Flint was near the rail, fighting a soldier, when a cannon blast hit the ship, not far from where Flint was fighting. The blast was strong enough to send both of the men flying over the rail into the water, and he could not say if the scream he heard came out of his own mouth or from one of the dying men around him. He tried to limp to the rail as fast as possible, having to stop several times to fight until he made it to the edge and frantically searched for Flint in the battlefield of debris and dead bodies.

 

Panic was settling in his chest until he finally spotted him, bloody but still alive. Their eyes locked, and somehow they both knew this was the end they had both been dreading would come. He could not jump after Flint this time. There was no chance he could drag him to a nearby beach. Hell, he did not even know if there was any in close distance. But even if there was, he didn’t stand a chance. Not without his leg. This time he was useless. And they both knew it. If he were to fall into the water, it would certainly bring him death as well. 

 

He knew what was going to happen. And the look in Flint’s eyes told him he knew it as well. Flint would not fight it. He would let himself sink. For a moment, John wondered whether he should risk it, if he should dare to jump overboard again and try to save him. This could not be the end already. He was not prepared for it. Just as the determination set in, he saw Flint shake his head, softy, while never breaking eye contact. He wanted to protest, before he realized that there was no sense in it. The noise of the battle was overwhelming. There was no chance Flint would hear him. Not that it would matter, because he wouldn’t listen anyway.

 

This was their final farewell. The end of their shared path. How often had he dreamed about it, his mind trying to imagine how it would be? There were so many different scenarios, yet he had never envisioned something this simple. It was over. This was the day Captain Flint would die. And he, John Silver, would be his end because he could not save him. Because the useless, one-legged creature was not able to do it. How pathetic.

 

He could not look away, desperate to keep eye contact until the very end. His chest tightened. He was afraid. He did not want to let go. It was not fair. Yet Flint looked calm. There was no trace of fear in his face. Just fatigue. The will to fight was gone, and John could understand it. He didn’t want to fight anymore either. He had never wanted to. Not that he had had much of a choice. Not after losing his leg. Served him right for being so greedy. Suddenly there was Muldoon’s voice in his head as he remembered the words the man spoke before the water had swallowed him.

 

_They say the worst of it doesn’t last long. What the water does to you once it’s got you. It makes you cold, it makes you scared. It shows you things. Bad things. But then it warms you. It settles you. It shows you the places you’ve been… the people you loved. They’re all there waiting for you._

 

They were waiting for Flint. Thomas and Miranda. John knew it. There would be never true happiness for Flint while he was alive. John was not enough. He would never be. Though he was still tempted to follow him. To jump too into the unknown dark and see where it would take him. To try to save something regardless of if it was even worth saving. But the look on Flint’s face told him to stop. He shook his head again as if he knew what was going on in John’s head, what he was thinking about doing.

 

A soft smile graced Flint’s lips, and there was almost some kind of happiness visible in his eyes. He was going home. To the place where he belonged, to the people he loved and who loved him back. There was no place for John. And perhaps it was all right. Perhaps this was the way it was meant to be. Captain Flint had been born in a sea of blood; now he would sink into the blood stained water to find death. Such a fitting yet bitter irony. 

 

John tried to force a smile onto his face, though perhaps it was more of a grimace. If his face was the last face Flint saw before he died he did not want him to see anger or sadness in it.

 

„Farewell James…“ he whispered softly, his voice barely audible as he watched how Flint slowly sank beneath the waves, keeping eye contact with him until the very last moment. Then Flint’s eyes closed and he disappeared.

 

Alone he stood on the deck. He could not say how much time had passed. Perhaps mere minutes even though it had felt more like hours. The battle was still going. Cannons and debris flew all around him, shrapnel cutting into his body. He did not feel it; he could not move. His limbs were frozen on the spot where he was standing. People were screaming. Guns were shooting. It was a cacophony of battle sounds. If this was to be his end as well, so be it. He could not find it in himself to care for it anymore. Silent tears were running down his cheeks. Or perhaps it was blood. He did not know.

 

His gaze locked on the water as he stared at the emptiness of the deep dark sea. He could not look away. 

For in that moment it matched the fathomless abyss of agony inside his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is inspired by an idea that I had since I finished season two. I always wanted to know what would happen if something like the near drowning incident of 1.08 would happen long after season 2 or 3, when Silver had lost his leg and couldn't save Flint and so this story was born. I hope you enjoyed reading it.
> 
> My thanks goes to phalangine and twobrokenwyngs on tumblr for helping me edit this.
> 
> Title taken from the Deine Lakaien song Ulysses.
> 
> Comments and kudos are very much appreciated! <3


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